


The String in Our Bones

by wearenotsaints



Series: holding us together [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:29:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearenotsaints/pseuds/wearenotsaints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Because the dead cling to the living like shadows they just can't seem to shake and Harry wonders if this is how it'll always be. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>or the one where two of the five die and the other three have to go on living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The String in Our Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by god knows what, probably my twisted mind telling me I only write well when the finished product is tragic... *shrugs* Either way, I'm quite fond of this. Let me know what ya'll think cause reads&reviews are my drug of choice.

     Harry plants his palms flat on the expanse of Zayn’s shoulders, his skin hot even through the layers of his leather jacket. Squeezes hard and shakes him a bit, rough because Zayn won't meet his eyes. There's a cigarette tucked behind his ear and he told them he was quitting weeks ago but Harry's smelled smoke on him for days now. Niall sways on his feet somewhere to the right of them. He's drunk, if the dark glint of his sunglasses and the tight draw of his sweatshirt hood are anything to go by and Harry wants to tell him he's stupid. That no one wears sunglasses after the suns set and does he do anything but drink anymore? 

 

     "Don't fuckin’ touch me!" Zayn seethes, bringing his hands up to knock Harry's away but the motion is stiff and slow. Like even that small bit of movement has left him exhausted. Harry sneers and shoves his hands back into Zayn’s personal space, over the skin at the side of his neck, pushing closer than he knows Zayn likes. They’re cracking apart and Harry's finding it harder and harder to remember what they used to be. Before Louis and Liam snuck out for a late night drive and never came back; before two fifths of their makeshift family were lowered six feet under, leaving Zayn and Niall and Harry behind and _alone_ and **broken**. Before everything went to shit and they didn't know what to do with themselves. 

     "Make me," Harry hisses, a challenge in his voice because he's been itching for a fight and no one knows how to pick him apart quite like the dark haired boy from Bradford. Beside them, Niall whines low in his throat and takes a sloppy step forward, one hand raised towards them like a placation.  

     "Guys," he mutters, Irish accent prominent and slurred, "Not here yeah?" And Harry wants to laugh. Because if not here than where? The apartment complex they used to call home but only frequent now to pass out or fuck? The studio they spend hours in just sitting, telling themselves and each other that they'll make music again, just not today? 

     Everywhere is tainted with the memory of Liam and Louis. 

     Nowhere is safe. 

     Nowhere untouched by the dead. 

     Not even the dingy alley behind some nameless pub on the outskirts of town, somewhere the boys they'd loved had never even been. Because the dead cling to the living three like shadows they just can't seem to shake and Harry wonders if this is how it'll always be. If they're now doomed to constantly look over their shoulders, peer closer at the faces in a crowd, chase strangers around corners and wake up to do it all again. Sometimes he hears Louis' laugh down the hall or Liam singing in the shower and he figures that this is what it looks like to go insane. Asked Niall once if he heard them too and Zayn punched Harry in the jaw when the other started to cry. 

     "Leave it Niall," Zayn says, voice clipped and Harry digs his fingernails into Zayn’s skin because he's surprised. Zayn’s the one whose been coddling the blonde; curling tightest around him when they all drop from exhaustion or whispering low into his ear when Niall goes pale and withdrawn. 

     Harry doesn't have any sympathy to spare, not for them; not anymore. Spent all of it on their families and friends and fans. Keeps propping his smile up at the sides with proverbial toothpicks that cut and bleed when his mouth sags at the edges. He's so sick of pretending things will get better, that they'll make it through this. There was a time when the only people he wanted to see were Niall and Zayn. He doesn't think he can stomach looking at their faces for another fucking minute.  

     "Zayn," Niall breathes and it sounds like he's drowning. He's dropped his hand, pulled the drawstring of his hoodie into his mouth where he gnaws on it with frantic desperation. Harry thinks he hates him. Hates himself more for thinking it. "Please." Niall finishes lamely and Zayn steps away from both of them, further into the dark and Harry feels it like the physical blow he was begging for. Because none of them has walked away yet, none of them has actively made a move like this. Done something that's reeked of separation and distance. There's been too much leaving for them to keep up the trend. At Niall's soft whimper Harry finds himself moving, tugging the shorter to him and folding arms around him. Niall's gotten so skinny that Harry can count his ribs against his palms. He shushes him and tucks Niall's head beneath his chin, leveling Zayn with another steady glare. Zayn actively ignores him, lights his cigarette with shaking hands and sucks the nicotine down deep. Exhales into the stale night air where the smoke mingles with the tangible color of Niall's sorrow and Harry's rage. And even those are dull. Bruised purple and pale grey. Harry wishes Zayn would mix them on his easel and paint them something lasting. Something they could point to and say

     " ** _This_. _This_ is who we are now.** " 

     But Zayn hasn't touched his brushes for months, about the same amount of time since Niall picked up his guitar and played something other than Ray LaMontagne and Harry wrote a song he actually had an intention of finishing. “Don’t you dare,” Harry seethes, “Don’t you dare think you can go too.” And behind it all, the agony and scathing façade, Harry is really just pain and crumbling bones. The “ _don’t make us do this alone”_ goes unspoken. Harry’s not sure if Zayn can hear it anymore. Zayn’s shoulders sag and his fingers go limp; the embers of his cigarette glowing for one brilliant second before they’re extinguished at the puddle by his feet. He trips forward, crashes into the only band mates that are left, and wilts against their frames. 

     “I wouldn’t” Zayn gasps, sobbing, his face hot against the side of Harry’s neck, “Fuck. I would never—“ And Harry fumbles to get a grasp on the back of Zayn’s neck; fierce and frantic, his overwhelming feelings from earlier bleed out of him. He clutches the two bodies closer to him and shushes them between strangled breaths. Because this, _this_ , is why Harry could never dream of pushing them away, of running. The hurt is enough to kill him now. He knows he’d never make it on his own. “I’m sorry. So, so, sorry,” Zayn continues to blabber, “I didn’t mean it. Any of it. _Christ_ …”Harry just holds on tighter, mumbles,

     “Me too. Me too,” into Niall’s hair and feels their tears wetting the thin material of his shirt. Another visible stain of misery.

     “Will it ever get better?” Niall asks, skin and bone against Harry’s chest and the Chesire boy doesn’t have an answer. Knows that logically, yes, time heals the wounds that feel like they’ll be the death of you. But Harry hasn’t been thinking logically for quite some time. So he just kisses the shell of the Irish boy’s ear; the crown of the Bradford boy’s bowed head, and tries to breathe for all of them. The dead and the left behind.

 

 

 


End file.
